Mental and physical practice schedules in acquisition and retention of novel timing skills

Learning motor actions via imagery-perceptual or motor learning?

It is well accepted that repeatedly imagining oneself acting without any overt behavior can lead to learning. The prominent theory accounting for why imagery practice is effective, motor simulation theory, posits that imagined action and overt action are functionally equivalent, the exception being activation of the end effector. If, as motor simulation theory states, one can compile the goal, plan, motor program and outcome of an action during imagined action similar to overt action, then learning of novel skills via imagery should proceed in a manner equivalent to that of overt action. While the evidence on motor simulation theory is both plentiful and diverse, it does not explicitly account for differences in neural and behavioural findings between imagined and overt action. In this position paper, we briefly review theoretical accounts to date and present a perceptual-cognitive theory that accounts for often observed outcomes of imagery practice. We suggest that learning by way of imagery reflects perceptual-cognitive scaffolding, and that this 'perceptual' learning transfers into 'motor' learning (or not) depending on various factors. Based on this theory, we characterize consistently reported learning effects that occur with imagery practice, against the background of well-known physical practice effects and show that perceptual-cognitive scaffolding is well-suited to explain what is being learnt during imagery practice.

The Association Between PLAYfun and Physical Activity: A Convergent Validation Study

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the convergent validity of the PLAYfun tool, a physical literacy-based measure of movement competence, by examining its association with objectively measured physical activity in a sample of children and youth. Method: Participants included 110 children between the ages of seven to 14 years attending a stratified random sample of 27 afterschool programs across the province of Ontario, Canada. The PLAYfun tool was administered to the participants on one occasion at their afterschool program and then they were asked to wear a pedometer for seven consecutive days to measure their physical activity levels. A series of multiple linear regression models were used to examine the association between PLAYfun scores and physical activity, while controlling for age, sex, and time of year (season) in which the data were collected. Results: On its own, the PLAYfun average score accounted for close to 13% of the variance in physical activity, R = .36, R² = .13, p < .001. The PLAYfun average score was also a significant independent predictor of physical activity, b (SE) = 145.98 (53.46), p < .01, when controlling for age, sex, and season in which the data were collected, R² = .30, F (4, 105) = 11.04, p < .001. Conclusion: Results from the present study indicate that the PLAYfun tool is a significant predictor of objectively measured physical activity, supporting the convergent validity of the tool.

Reliability of Teams' Game-Related Statistics in Basketball: Number of Games Required and Minimal Detectable Change

In basketball, game-related statistics are the most common measure of performance. However, the literature assessing their reliability is scarce. Purpose: Analyze the number of games required to obtain a good relative and absolute reliability of teams' game-related statistics. Method: A total of 884 games from the 2015-2016 to 2017-2018 seasons of the Spanish men's professional league were analyzed using all games and clustered by scoring difference. Intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated for each variable. The number of games required to detect a change and to achieve good relative reliability was calculated using minimal detectable change and Spearman-Brown prophecy formula respectively. Results: Using all games, the results showed that the minimal number of games required in each group was 30 to detect a medium change (d > .5), 187 for a small change (d > .2), and 100 for good relative reliability (ICC ≥ .75). Using balanced and unbalanced games, the minimal number of games required in each group was respectively 31 and 30 to detect a medium change (d > .5), 190 and 188 for a small change (d > .2), and 191 and 121 for good relative reliability (ICC ≥ .75). Conclusions: The sample needs to consist of at least 30 games in each group to detect a medium size change, and at least 190 games to detect a small size change. To be able to rank teams with good reliability, at least 100 games are required when including both balanced and unbalanced games.

Challenges & Issues: Evidence-Based Clinical Skills Teaching and Learning: What Do We Really Know?

The recent programmatic focus on skills development in veterinary medicine means that many programs are devoting increased time to formal clinical skills teaching. This expansion makes it essential that we use the time as effectively as possible. This review examines current practices and veterinary training principles using the broader field of evidence-based motor skills learning as a lens. In many areas, current practices may be hindering learning. Proposed practices include using videos and discussions for pre-laboratory training, focusing on a single complex skill at a time, using more near-peer instructors rather than faculty, including assessments in each teaching or practice session, and encouraging supervised distributed practice by incorporating practice sessions into the formal curriculum. Ensuring mastery of a few core skills rather than exposure to many may be the new goal. Further research is urgently needed on block versus spiral curricula, optimum instructor-to-student ratios, learning and practice schedules, hours required for proficiency, and the benefits of exercise on motor skills learning.

Functional performance comparison between real and virtual tasks in older adults: A cross-sectional study

INTRODUCTION

Ageing is usually accompanied by deterioration of physical abilities, such as muscular strength, sensory sensitivity, and functional capacity, making chronic diseases, and the well-being of older adults new challenges to global public health.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether a task practiced in a virtual environment could promote better performance and enable transfer to the same task in a real environment.

METHOD

The study evaluated 65 older adults of both genders, aged 60 to 82 years (M = 69.6, SD = 6.3). A timing coincident task was applied to measure the perceptual-motor ability to perform a motor response. The participants were divided into 2 groups: started in a real interface and started in a virtual interface.

RESULTS

All subjects improved their performance during the practice, but improvement was not observed for the real interface, as the participants were near maximum performance from the beginning of the task. However, there was no transfer of performance from the virtual to real environment or vice versa.

CONCLUSIONS

The virtual environment was shown to provide improvement of performance with a short-term motor learning protocol in a timing coincident task. This result suggests that the practice of tasks in a virtual environment seems to be a promising tool for the assessment and training of healthy older adults, even though there was no transfer of performance to a real environment.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

ISRCTN02960165. Registered 8 November 2016.

Short-term motor learning through non-immersive virtual reality task in individuals with down syndrome

Background

Down syndrome (DS) has unique physical, motor and cognitive characteristics. Despite cognitive and motor difficulties, there is a possibility of intervention based on the knowledge of motor learning. However, it is important to study the motor learning process in individuals with DS during a virtual reality task to justify the use of virtual reality to organize intervention programs. The aim of this study was to analyze the motor learning process in individuals with DS during a virtual reality task.

Methods

A total of 40 individuals participated in this study, 20 of whom had DS (24 males and 8 females, mean age of 19 years, ranging between 14 and 30 yrs.) and 20 typically developing individuals (TD) who were matched by age and gender to the individuals with DS. To examine this issue, we used software that uses 3D images and reproduced a coincidence-timing task.

Results

The results showed that all individuals improved performance in the virtual task, but the individuals with DS that started the task with worse performance showed higher difference from the beginning. Besides that, they were able to retain and transfer the performance with increase of speed of the task.

Conclusion

Individuals with DS are able to learn movements from virtual tasks, even though the movement time was higher compared to the TD individuals. The results showed that individuals with DS who started with low performance improved coincidence- timing task with virtual objects, but were less accurate than typically developing individuals.

Trial registration

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02719600.

Retention of the spacing effect with mental practice in hemiparetic stroke

Mental practice (MP) is a promising adjuvant to physical practice that involves many of the same mechanisms and takes on many of the same properties as physical practice. This study compared efficacy of a "massed" MP regimen versus a "distributed" MP regimen on upper extremity (UE) motor impairment and functional limitation. Twenty-seven chronic stroke survivors were administered the UE section of the Fugl-Meyer (FM) and Action Research Arm Test (ARAT), followed by standardized physical practice and MP regimens. One group was administered "massed" MP (60 min of MP during a single daily session) and a second group administered distributed MP (20 min of MP occurring three times/day). After intervention, changes in FM and ARAT scores of subjects in the distributed condition were significantly higher than those of subjects in the massed condition (FM 3.65, 95 % CI 0.82-6.49, p value = 0.01; ARAT 3.95, 95 % CI 1.24-6.67, p value = 0.006). Likewise, at POST 3, subjects in the distributed group showed significantly higher change in ARAT scores (ARAT 4.90, 95 % CI 0.57-9.22, p value = 0.03); the change in FM scores at POST 3 was 3.18 points higher among subjects in the distributed condition, but only approached significance (95 % CI -1.27 to 7.63, p value = 0.15). Results suggest that a distributed MP schedule is more efficacious in bringing about paretic UE changes than a massed practice schedule, especially in terms of reducing UE functional limitation.

Effects of mental practice in novice learners in a serial positioning skill acquisition

The effects of mental practice in novices were investigated. University students (N = 60) performed a serial aiming task, distributed in 5 groups of 12: mental practice, physical practice, mental-physical practice (first mental then physical practice), physical-mental practice (first physical then mental practice), and a control group that only performed the tests. Participants transported three tennis balls among six containers in a pre-established sequence in a target time. In the acquisition phase and retention test (24 hr. later), the task was the same; in the transfer test, 5 min. after the acquisition phase, sequence and time changed. Six trials were performed in the acquisition phase, and each test consisted of 9 trials. The performance measures were absolute error, constant error, and variable error; a t test and a two-way ANOVA were used to compare the acquisition phase and tests, respectively. Physical practice and both groups of combined conditions presented better performance in tests than the mental practice and control groups. Mental practice without motor experience in the task did not improve motor learning. Prior physical performance is desirable before conducting mental practice.

Sex Differences in Coincidence-Anticipation Timing (Cat): A Review

Coincidence-anticipation timing (CAT) is the ability to judge when a moving stimulus will arrive at a target. 43 articles were reviewed which investigated sex differences in this skill. Performance was typically recorded as one or more of three error measures, absolute error (AE), constant error (CE), and variable error (VE). Despite many null findings, it is argued that the evidence for a male advantage is strong, particularly for AE and VE. 10 parameters typically associated with CAT studies were analyzed (e.g., knowledge of results, number of trials, stimulus duration, and stimulus speed), but none differentiated clearly between the presence and absence of the sex difference. However, when the mean AE score was used as a measure of task difficulty, a male advantage was reliably associated with lower values of AE (easier tasks) and null findings with higher values (more difficult tasks). An attempt to compare sex difference findings from Bassin timer and real-world tasks was thwarted by the lack of studies using real-world tasks. Given little evidence for the influence of socialization on sex differences in CAT, it is suggested that the difference may have originated from the evolutionary selection of women for gathering and men for hunting.

Mental practice and the retention of motor learning: a pilot study

This study compared the effects of mental practice, physical practice, and no practice on the performance and retention of a novel throwing task. Research supports the effectiveness of mental practice on performance; however, retention of learning has not been adequately investigated. Participants were 152 students ages 18 to 44 years (M = 20.5, SD = 2.9), who completed a pretest, posttest, and five-week delayed retention test of dart throwing with the nonpreferred hand. In the practice phase, participants completed 50 mental practice or physical practice trials of the darts task or 50 trials of a catching task. Results indicated that overall scores increased from pretest to posttest and retention test, and decreased from posttest to retention test, but that these effects did not differ for type of practice. The findings suggest equal learning and retention of learning for novel throwing tasks for control, mental practice, and physical practice conditions; however, further research that considers issues raised is recommended.

Simultaneous Treatment Effects in Learning Four Tennis Shots in Contextual Interference Conditions

This study investigated simultaneous treatments in contextual interference (blocked and random practice) and their effect on the process of learning four tennis shots. 8 tennis players participated in the research, which was carried out in two phases. The first phase involved a 3-wk. period of 12 sessions with 192 practice tennis shots per session for each tennis player. The second phase comprised 4 retention tests carried out at 48 hr. and 2, 4, and 6 weeks following the learning phase. This phase consisted of evaluating the retention of the skills that had been practiced during the learning phase. The results indicated an improvement in the quality of shots for both practice conditions during the learning phase. Differences in retention appeared relative to differences in the type of practice conditions (random or blocked) in which the skill was learned and also depended on the type of shot and the time that had elapsed since the learning period.

Experiences of health professionals who conducted root cause analyses after undergoing a safety improvement programme

BACKGROUND

Research on root cause analysis (RCA), a pivotal component of many patient safety improvement programmes, is limited.

OBJECTIVE

To study a cohort of health professionals who conducted RCAs after completing the NSW Safety Improvement Program (SIP).

HYPOTHESIS

Participants in RCAs would: (1) differ in demographic profile from non-participants, (2) encounter problems conducting RCAs as a result of insufficient system support, (3) encounter more problems if they had conducted fewer RCAs and (4) have positive attitudes regarding RCA and safety.

DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

Anonymous questionnaire survey of 252 health professionals, drawn from a larger sample, who attended 2-day SIP courses across New South Wales, Australia.

OUTCOME MEASURES

Demographic variables, experiences conducting RCAs, attitudes and safety skills acquired.

RESULTS

No demographic variables differentiated RCA participants from non-participants. The difficulties experienced while conducting RCAs were lack of time (75.0%), resources (45.0%) and feedback (38.3%), and difficulties with colleagues (44.5%), RCA teams (34.2%), other professions (26.9%) and management (16.7%). Respondents reported benefits from RCAs, including improved patient safety (87.9%) and communication about patient care (79.8%). SIP courses had given participants skills to conduct RCAs (92.8%) and improve their safety practices (79.6%). Benefits from the SIP were thought to justify the investment by New South Wales Health (74.6%) and committing staff resources (72.6%). Most (84.8%) of the participants wanted additional RCA training.

CONCLUSIONS

RCA participants reported improved skills and commitment to safety, but greater support from the workplace and health system are necessary to maintain momentum.